


pull the devil down (one way or another)

by fictionalcandie



Series: superhero soul mates [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Background Relationships, Gen, Soul Bond, Telepathic Bond, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 01:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5688535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalcandie/pseuds/fictionalcandie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody and their brother know that Tony Stark is bondless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Posting more, finally! And moving things right along into the 21st century. Have some Tony feels.
> 
> Many thanks to both [ace](http://archiveofourown.org/users/alia_castiella/pseuds/ace) and [duva](http://archiveofourown.org/users/duva) for reading this over. Warning for canon ickiness, including Howard and Maria's deaths and Tony's captivity. Title is from the song _Think You Can Wait_ by The National.

A week before his seventeenth birthday, Tony Stark wakes up shivering. 

“Fuck,” he gasps, clinging at the blankets burrito’d around him and trying to draw them closer still. “Jesus, it’s cold.”

As the day goes on, he can’t get warm; instead, he gets colder, and colder, a chill down to his bones that he can’t seem to shake. That night, before he tries to sleep, he steals the blankets off his parents’ empty bed. Not like they’re going to need ‘em.

Seeing as how they’re never actually _home_. Tony hasn’t even seen them in months.

The extra blankets help, but Tony still feels frozen inside as he falls asleep.

#

Tony’s eighteenth birthday passes without incident.

“I’m pretty sure you getting drunk at an MIT alumni party and vomiting on the dean’s shoes would count as an incident,” Obie says, the next day. He’s staring at Tony’s huddled, hungover form with his hands on his hips.

“But no soul bond,” Tony says.

“I know you’re speaking because I see your mouth moving, but I don’t hear anything resembling English,” Obie says. He doesn’t sound at all sympathetic.

Heartless bastard.

“Wanted a soul bond.” This time, Tony makes sure to say it _very_ clearly.

Obie sighs. It’s big and gusty, like dealing with Tony takes a herculean act of patience and Obie’s is running thin. He crouches down so he’s more on Tony’s level.

“Tony, you’re a smart boy, so I know you know a lot of people’s soul bonds don’t come in on their eighteenth birthday. Those that do are only—”

Which, Tony does know that. Even hungover, he knows that. “Forty-six-point-seventy-five percent,” he mumbles.

Obie raises his eyebrows. “I was going to say ‘half’.”

“Have to allow for death and bondlessness.”

“Right.” Obie pauses. “So you also know how many people’s bonds come in sometime _after_ they turn eighteen. Right?”

“Forty-eight-point-twenty-five,” Tony says, without having to think too hard about it.

“Death and bondlessness?”

Tony nods into his pillow. “Mostly death.”

Obie sighs again.

“What I’m getting at, Tony,” he says, “is that it’s not a big deal your birthday passed without your bond coming in. If your parents were here, they’d say the same thing.”

Tony glares. He’s pretty sure they wouldn’t, actually. The age difference between his parents was large enough to be scandalous, and from what Tony’s heard, Howard Stark’s behavior before he’d gotten his bond had _not_ helped lessen that scandal. Tony’s pretty sure his dad hadn’t thought it wasn’t a big deal to wait nearly twenty years for Maria to grow up and the bond to come in.

Not that either of them ever actually talks to Tony about it, or anything.

And what does Obie know about it, anyway? His soul bond to his wife came in two days after his eighteenth birthday, hardly any kind of wait at all. Not like that makes him an expert.

Tony decides it’s time to ignore Obie. He rolls over, away from Obie, and stops paying attention to him.

#

Without a soul bond, there’s no presence in the back of his mind keeping Tony company wherever he goes, the way there is for ( _seventy-three-point—_ ) most of his classmates.

He builds his own, so that he’ll never have to be alone.

He calls it Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, because he’s hilarious and it makes their old butler blush and his wife laugh, and if Tony can’t make his parents give him a genuine, uncomplicated smile, well, at least he can do _that_ much.

#

The doorbell of Stark Mansion—the one in upstate New York, the first one, distinguishing it from all the _other_ Stark mansions littered across the country—rings a little while after dawn.

The rain has finally stopped; it’d lightened to a steady drizzle just before sunrise, then trailed off entirely. Tony hardly notices it, now—a soft mist isn’t really that interesting, compared to the downpour they got the night before—and anyway, the perpetual chill in his bones hasn’t been as bad the last couple days, so right now there could be a _blizzard_ and he still wouldn’t mind.

Tony’s home and awake (that’s awake _still_ , not _already_ awake), for once, so of course he’s the first one to the door. He opens it with a wisecrack about polite visiting hours at the ready, and—

There are three people on the doorstep; two uniformed police officers, one of whom looks barely Tony’s age, and a man in a suit that screams ‘civil servant’, who looks like he rolled out of bed at _most_ twenty minutes ago. The younger cop is ashen, his eyes huge and filled with dread.

“Mr. Stark,” Civil Servant Suit says, in a leaden voice, as soon as Tony’s got the door open all the way. “I’m—so sorry.”

Tony’s quip dies on his tongue.

“It’s your parents, son,” the older police officer says, and her voice is just as heavy. “We found their car out on Route—“

Tony can’t look at them. Their words feel like physical blows, and he just—can’t. He wishes, for a wild moment, that he were younger, so they’d’ve insisted on talking to an adult instead of a minor, instead of _him_. He would’ve protested it, if he really _were_ eighteen, or even seventeen, but in the here and now where it’s actually happening, he wants desperately to have a couple more hours of ignorance. At twenty-one, an actual adult by pretty much all standard forms of measure, his relationship with Mom and Dad isn’t— _wasn’t_ —the best, but it’s still— _was_ still—

His _parents_. God.

He stares out past the cops and Civil Servant Suit, looks at the lawn instead, his eyes fixing on the leftover drops of rain on the grass. A few weak beams of sunlight are breaking through the low clouds, catching all those droplets and sparkling them back at Tony. It’s not raining anymore.

“—they were both already gone,” Older Cop says. She pauses. It’s as heavy as her voice was.

Tony shivers, pulls his heavy fleece robe more tightly closed around himself. He can feel their eyes on him, but he still can’t make himself meet them.

Older Cop keeps talking. “It looks like a tire blew, and the vehicle hit the tree at a pretty high speed. The driver’s side sustained most of the dam—”

“Which one?” Tony hears his voice ask, as if from far away.

Older Cop stops. There’s another pause, is if they’re trading looks. “I’m sorry?” she asks.

“Which of them was driving?”

Someone clears their throat. Tony thinks it might have been Civil Servant Suit. They don’t answer.

Tony finally drags his gaze back to the three of them, to find they’re all staring at him. “Who was it?” he asks, through the shivers that are starting to make his teeth chatter. He feels as cold as he’s felt at any time before, like the last few days of almost-warmth were a vicious and deliberate lie.

“Your father,” Civil Servant Suit says, finally.

“Most likely the impact killed him immediately,” Older Cop hastily adds, with a short glare at Civil Servant Suit. “He wouldn’t have suffered.”

Completely unimpressed with such a weak attempt at pacification, Tony gives her a flat stare.

“And Mom?” he demands.

She looks away. Tony’s stomach sinks.

Civil Servant Suit clears his throat again. He doesn’t offer an answer, either.

“Her injuries weren’t nearly as bad,” Rookie Cop blurts. He looks like he’s regretting every word even as it leaves his mouth, but he’s _talking_ , which Tony figures is something, at least. “We think she—The official cause of death looks to be massive sudden bond shock.”

Tony looks away again. His chest and his skull both feel abruptly hollowed out, and he’s not sure which is meant to hurt the most.

There’s not much more for either the cops or Civil Servant Suit to say. They don’t stay for very long, not after Tony promises that Jarvis and the lawyers will take care of everything that needs to be dealt with.

Tony closes the door on their figures retreating down the drive, and goes to his room. He doesn’t come out again for three days, not to eat, not to shower, not the next day when Director Carter comes by and bullies Jarvis into letting her make sure he’s still breathing, and not even when Obie finally shows up and tries to alternately cajole and threaten him into making an appearance in front of the press for the sake of the company.

Tony doesn’t come out until he has to either show his face or miss the funeral.

His parents’ will specified their desire for a double coffin, if they died together. Which means it’s a closed coffin, because of the severe damage to Howard Stark’s head and body. Tony doesn’t know if having his parents’ faces, chalky white and unnaturally still in death, to stare at through the funeral would’ve been better or worse.

Tony stares down into the grave, instead, watches as it’s filled with dirt one shovelful at a time, and shivers, cold all over again. Colder than ever.

#

“Are you sure about this,” Pepper Potts says, for the ninety-seventh time, as the private jet taxis toward the runway. She hasn’t been his personal assistant for that long, all things considered, but she keeps asking even though Tony keeps pretending not to hear her. It’s just like how she keeps making him sign the things he’s supposed to even though he keeps pretending he won’t—so Tony’s pretty sure he’s gonna keep this one.

Flying is boring. Tony really doesn’t have anything else to focus on, at the moment, so he wraps his custom blend alpaca-silk-wool airplane blanket more tightly around his shoulders and turns his attention to her.

“Totally sure. I’m not putting up with another New York winter,” Tony says, answering her question with honesty, just for the hell of it. Obfuscation gets boring when you do it all the time. Almost as boring as being in airplanes. “I dealt with twenty-eight of them, and that was more than enough. It was this or buy Cuba.”

Pepper raises her eyebrows. “Even though you literally had to build yourself a house?”

“‘House’ is such a little word.”

“Mansion?” she suggests.

“I prefer ‘pinnacle of architectural perfection’, myself.”

“Mm. And even though moving to Malibu means you’ll be close to your main factory and it might make people expect you to _do things_?” Pepper presses, no doubt getting to the real heart of her distrust over Tony’s dedication to his relocation.

Tony likes Pepper. He does. So, in an irrational fit of sincerity, he pushes his sunglasses down and gives her a flat, serious look over the top of them.

“Ms Potts, I would go into the office every single day, with a song on my lips and a bounce in my step, if it meant I never had to be as cold as I was last winter ever again.”

Pepper doesn’t laugh or assume he’s being facetious. Pepper considers his statement.

After a few minutes, she nods. “Very well, Mr. Stark. If you’re sure, then.”

“Totally sure, Miss Potts,” Tony says, and Pepper, because she is clearly the most awesome PA he’s ever had, lets it go.

#

It’s just a weapons demonstration. Nothing to get excited about, even though it _is_ in the middle of a war zone. Tony’ll go, gladhand a few military bigwigs, have a couple drinks, exasperate the hell out of Rhodey. It’ll be fun, probably. No big deal.

Except that isn’t what happens. Things go to shit between one blink and the next. There are explosions, and gunfire. Everyone around him is dying.

Tony sees one of his own missiles on the ground near him, and he’s sure he’s going to die, too. He just has time to think that at least it’ll be warm in hell—

The world disappears in fire and pain.

He doesn’t die.

#

It really shouldn’t be, but the worst thing about being held captive in a cave in Afghanistan isn’t any of the hundred horrible things someone else might think.

The worst thing is the _cold_.

Over two decades of the worst circulation on the planet means Tony’s used to the cold, or thought he was; has three blankets for every bed to his name, even the guest ones, and a Guinness world record for the most expensive outerwear collection ever. But it’s worse, in the cave.

He’s cold, and _alone_ , neither of which is really new territory, but he’s never felt it so profoundly. Also, he’s pretty sure Yinsen must think he’s a hardcore addict in withdrawal, the way he stares at Tony’s hands.

Because Tony’s hands won’t stop shaking, he can’t stop shivering.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop.

#

It’s so cold that Tony keeps dozing off without realizing it, and waking with Yinsen’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

The third or fourth time it happens, Tony catches the thoughtful crease between Yinsen’s brows before he can smooth it away.

“What?” Tony demands, rubbing his hands together, trying to get some warmth back in them. No surprises here, it doesn’t work.

“You speak French?” Yinsen asks, which is so totally bizarre that it actually makes Tony stop and stare.

“What? No,” he says. “I mean, I probably could if I wanted to, but no, I don’t.”

“Huh,” says Yinsen.

Tony narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“You were talking in your sleep,” Yinsen says. “In French.”

Tony stares. He blinks. “Huh.”

#

“French again?” Tony asks, every time Yinsen wakes him after that.

“Yes,” is all Yinsen replies with, until, once, when they’ve almost got the suit finished, he says, “No.”

“What, really?”

”Russian, this time,” says Yinsen.

“Seriously?”

Yinsen gives a short, sharp nod.

“This is just getting _weird_ ,” Tony says.

Nobody answers him.

#

Everybody and their brother know that Tony Stark is bondless.

It’s really no wonder that Yinsen never told Tony about losing his soulmate. There’s no reason on earth to have thought Tony would understand. And Tony, he—he _doesn’t_.

Tony’s never had anything, where the bond’s supposed to be. He can’t imagine having, and going on after having lost it.

Sometimes he can’t imagine going on, even only just never having had.

#

Two nights later, Tony falls asleep, shivering under the desert sun. He wakes to the distant _whumpa-whump_ of approaching helicopter rotor blades.

Yinsen isn’t there to tell him in what language he was mumbling.

#

As soon as Tony makes it down to his workshop, the first time after all that unspeakable horror, he snaps, “Furnaces to maximum, Lieutenant JARVIS,” even though Pepper’s _right there_ , and probably already too warm in her light jacket.

“Yes, sir,” says JARVIS.

“I want this place _toasty_. As toasty as a marshmallow a kid drops in a campfire.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tony,” Pepper says, with a cautious edge. She’s giving him the careful eyes again.

Tony doesn’t care.

He likes Pepper, she’s brilliant and gorgeous and competent and has a soul bond to the best bodyguard-driver in the history of bodyguard-drivers, but she doesn’t understand. Nobody has ever understood about the cold. After more than two decades, Tony’s pretty sure nobody _can_.

Besides, the careful eyes are better than the way she’d looked at him right after the press conference earlier today.

As if him not wanting to make weapons is really all that ridiculous.

Tony knows from ridiculous, and that isn’t.

Tony stays in his workshop, lets JARVIS warm up the air until Tony _almost_ doesn’t feel a chill anymore, and pretends not to notice Pepper’s worry or her judgement or _anything_ until she gives up and goes away, sweat rings under her sleeves, and lets him try to forget things in overheated peace.

Not that it _works_.

And he’s still _cold_ , damn it.

#

SHIELD doesn’t want him to admit that he was the one inside the armor during the fight at the Stark Industries factory and on the freeway. They want him to pretend it was some anonymous bodyguard who fought Tony’s business partner, the last guardian of his childhood—that it wasn’t Tony himself.

It’s a form of protection, Agent Coulson had said.

_Protection_.

Who does Tony have to protect?

He has Pepper, and Happy, but they have each other first. There’s Rhodey, but Rhodey’d be the first to point out he’s much better at defending himself than Tony is; besides that, there’s Rhodey’s mysterious soul mate who Tony never gets to meet, who’d no doubt be just fine with protecting Rhodey himself. There used to be Obie, but—There isn’t, anymore. Jarvis and his wife have been cold in the ground for years; Director Carter’s in a nursing home somewhere that no-one ever shared the name of, calling him by his father’s name whenever he sneaks in to see her.

That’s it, the sum total of Tony’s people, and not one of them needs him to keep this under wraps.

“The truth is,” he says, looking right at the cameras and not even feeling guilty about the cards he’s crumpling in his fist, “I am Iron Man.”


	2. Chapter 2

Tony’s body is falling apart on him. JARVIS tuts every time he takes Tony’s vitals now.

Actually goddamn _tuts_ —which has to be protocol Tony was black-out drunk when he coded, because he sure as hell doesn’t remember including it—like he’s Tony’s concerned grampa instead of the most advanced artificial intelligence on the planet.

If Tony had a soul mate, he’d probably feel worse about keeping this a secret. JARVIS is the closest thing to a soul mate that he has, though, and he’s an AI that Tony built himself for company in _college_. Tony doesn’t actually _have_ to listen him.

Tony doesn’t have a soul mate, so it’s really not anybody else’s business but his that he’s dying.

Not even Rhodey’s, when he finds Tony half-passed-out in his own garage. Not even with that _face_ Rhodey’s giving him, like he thinks maybe he should be insisting Tony be seen by a medical professional.

As if _that’s_ going to happen.

“Tell me something about your soul mate,” Tony says, to distract Rhodey, into the heavy silence after he’s replaced the palladium core with another that’s just going to burn out even faster than the last one did.

Rhodey looks at him like Tony’s _nuts_ , which, _score_ , is a far cry better than being concerned. “I’m not gonna play this game with you,” he says, in that particular impatient voice that means he thinks he’s not going to, but really, he’s totally gonna wind up doing it.

“C’mon, you never tell me anything about him! Aren’t I your best friend?” Tony asks, playing up the whine. His breath is still coming in too shallow, his heart is still beating too fast. Rhodey can’t see, he can’t _know_. “Shouldn’t I know more than that?”

“I told you he’s a man, didn’t I,” Rhodey shoots back.

“Yeah, and that’s it. The only thing, twenty-five years of knowing you and that’s all I get, seriously. You’ve had it for eighteen years and I don’t even know if you two are banging. Will I even be invited to the wedding? Has there _been_ a wedding?”

“Seriously, not doing this with you, Tony.”

Tony waits a beat. “So, no wedding invitation, then?”

“Why are you doing this right now?” Rhodey asks, pinching the bridge of his nose like Tony’s giving him a headache again.

“What, asking about your soul mate?”

“Tony…”

“Look, just one more thing, all right? Tiny tidbit, just a little thing, tell me that,” Tony says, cajoling.

Rhodey sighs.

Tony gives him his best pitiful, pleading eyes. “Please?”

“He’s a flyboy,” Rhodey says, and his tone is the one Tony knows means he’s wondering how the hell he’s ended up giving in to Tony again. Tony _loves_ that tone.

Tony beams, and, because he’s spent his whole life pushing where he shouldn’t, asks, “And are you banging, or is it strictly buddies?”

“ _Tony_.”

Mission accomplished, Tony thinks, and watches on one of the monitors as the extent of the palladium poisoning ticks up a few more percentage points.

#

Tony’s dying and there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do about it. It’s Tony’s forty-second birthday, he’s dying, and he’s bondless.

Even Tony’s father had his soul bond by the time he was Tony’s age. Hell, he and Mom had sorted out their issues enough that they were _engaged_ by the time Dad was Tony’s age.

Tony’s got an empty head and a chill in his bones, and he’s not going to see forty-three.

Tony has the _shittiest_ luck in the entire world.

He fires a repulsor at another watermelon. It explodes, and the sticky mess that results doesn’t make him feel any better at all, not even when it rains down on all his guests.

Pepper starts walking up to him, and the look on her face doesn’t help either.

“Heya, Pep,” he says, drunker than he is.

“That’s enough,” Pepper hisses.

And maybe, if he felt like being reasonable, she’d be right.

But, hell. If Tony’s gonna end his life the way he’s lived it, he might as well end it even _more_ alone, right? If you can’t win, why not fail as spectacularly as possible?

He drives Pepper away.

He lets Rhodey climb in the suit he left for him, lets Rhodey kick him around a little. Then he drives Rhodey away, too.

It’s—not as hard as he’d hoped it would be.

#

The last person Tony feels like putting up with in the aftermath of his birthday party—a _truly_ spectacular failure—while he’s miserable and sick and tired and as hungover as he’s ever been, is Director Nicholas J. Fury. So, true to the nature of Stark luck, that’s _exactly_ who shows up to harass Tony and ruin his sad attempt at Happy Fun Donut Time.

“Sir,” Fury calls up, dry and just a little mocking, “I’m gonna have to ask you to exit the donut.”

Well, if he has to be wrecking Tony’s already shitty morning, at least he’s got a good line with which to do it.

#

Fury knows. About the palladium poisoning, about the self-destruction, about his stealth goodbyes, about—everything, it seems.

He even knows the truth about Natalie, which apparently Tony didn’t. She smiles at him, bland and pleasant as ever, in her stupid hot spy catsuit thing.

“Wow, you’re just—you’re like the liarest liar to ever lie,” Tony says, impressed despite himself. He turns to Fury. “I bet your secrets have secrets.”

Fury doesn’t even twitch. In the corner of his eye, Tony can just see Not-Natalie smirking.

Then they drop another bombshell in his lap, a possibility he wasn’t even aware existed, _another_ thing Tony didn’t know, and, seriously, Tony’s not used to feeling like an idiot. He doesn’t appreciate it much.

“Are you going to keep using that as an excuse, or are you going to _do_ something to save your own life?” Fury asks, as _disturbingly intense_ as ever.

Tony gives them his best glare and says, “Well, when you put it like _that_.”

#

SHIELD has apparently been hoarding whole boxes of his father’s things. At least one of which, uselessly, seems to contain nothing but Captain America memorabilia. The legit kind, even—which probably isn’t that surprising, considering that Dad and Director Carter used to trade Captain America stories whenever she came to dinner.

Tony doesn’t see how eight dozen Captain America Original sketches of some pretty boy named Bucky are going to help him not die in messy agony when the palladium shuts down all his organs.

But most of the crates of Dad’s things are that unhelpful. All of them, actually.

Eventually, Tony gives up, a sick, heavy knot in his chest. He has a wild moment, wondering if he’s gonna get to see Dad soon, what he’s going to say to Mom, when she gives him that sad, sad look he was so used to growing up. Would it be worse now?

It would probably be worse now.

Fuck it, Tony’s not doing this today.

He goes to see Pepper, instead. Maybe he can get at least _one_ thing right.

#

He can’t. He can’t get anything right, and Pepper leaves, again. She takes Happy and Not-Natalie with her, this time.

#

Tony is a _genius_. Dad is a genius. _Starks are goddamn geniuses_.

The vibranium core tastes like coconut, like a second chance, and one single, stinging flash of _heat_. Tony didn’t remember what it felt like to not be dying, to be _warm_.

Tony is alive.

And he’s gonna save the world, one more time.

(Well. New York City. He’ll start with New York City.)

#

He saves the world, starting with New York City. He has a little help, though—more than a little. Pepper and Rhodey and Happy all had his back, he probably should have known they would. He knows it now, though, for absolute certain. Knows it down in his bones, where the chill lives. It’s—a good feeling.

“Let’s never do that again,” Pepper says, as soon as Tony sets her down, sucking in deep breaths with her hand pressed to her heart like she’s manually trying to slow it down. Tony gets that.

“Agreed,” Rhodey says, faceplate retracting at the same time, before Tony can speak up. He’s shaking his head. “Man, my soul mate is freaking out at me right now, you guys should be glad you can’t hear him.”

Pepper snorts. “I can hear mine, that’s bad enough.”

“Come on, I thought we did okay,” Tony protests.

Rhodey and Pepper look pointedly behind him. Tony glances back. So, there are some fires, a few things that maybe got a bit—exploded. He’s seen worse. He’s _done_ worse, and he knows the other two know it, too. Besides, Tony’s gonna pay for it. They’re making a fuss over nothing.

Tony rolls his eyes. “If I had a soul mate, they’d be on my side,” he mutters.

“That is just a _terrifying_ thought,” Rhodey says, seriously.

“You only think they would because you’re certifiably delusional,” is Pepper’s response.

Tony pouts and whines, and grins when they shake their heads and laugh it off. Inside, he’s thinking maybe they’re right, though—maybe there’s a reason he doesn’t have a soul mate, and maybe _that’s it_. Maybe there’s nobody else in the world crazy and foolhardy enough to keep up with him perfectly, the way a soul mate is supposed to. Maybe these two brave, wonderful people laughing at him right now are the best the universe could do, the closest it could come to perfect. Maybe he’s not _meant_ to have a bond.

For the first time, the thought doesn’t hurt like the hole in his chest. Oh, it still aches, but it’s a dull sort of pain—an old scar, not a wound he wakes up with fresh every day. No, he doesn’t have a soul mate, but that doesn’t mean he’s got _no-one_.

This, Tony thinks, yeah, this he could live with.

* * *

Tony’s in his workshop at home in Malibu, procrastinating packing up for the temporary move to set up his new tower in New York, when his soul bond finally makes itself known one afternoon in a surge of anger that isn’t his. It’s followed in short order by fear, and adrenaline, and then—overtaking everything—a crushing, breathless wash of loss that hits him right behind the arc reactor.

What feels like hours later, when the shaking is finally starting to die down, Tony lifts his head from his knees.

“Sir?” JARVIS says, immediately. He may be the world’s most advanced, and thus most sarcastic AI, but the inflection he puts on the words is pure concern.

Tony gets the sense that it’s not the first time JARVIS has said that, since Tony went and lost the plot.

“Miss Potts has just arrived. Shall I stall her upstairs?”

“Why would you do that? Just let her—“

“I thought perhaps you might wish to shower before dinner.”

Tony starts to protest, then pauses, and properly takes stock of himself. He’s covered in the tacky remains of a cold sweat, on top of the grease smears from today’s project. There are even streaks of—Tony has the resigned feeling that’s _blood_ , under his nails and down his hands. His palms are stinging enough for it.

“Tell her I’ll be up in ten.”

#

Tony’s sure his shower and change of clothing have left him perfectly presentable and not at all suspiciously disheveled, sweaty, or bloody.

Pepper takes one look at him when he comes into the kitchen, and narrows her eyes.

“What?” Tony blusters. “I thought it was time for dinner. Dinner and business forms for me to not sign. Why am I getting the look? We’re having dinner, right?”

“Yes, we’re having dinner,” Pepper says. Which should be reassuring, except she’s still looking at him suspiciously. “I thought you were in your workshop.”

Tony nods, maybe a little too quickly. “I was.”

“But you’re _clean_.”

“That’s harsh, Pep,” Tony says, putting a hand over his heart. “Really, I’m wounded. The implication that for me to be clean is in any way aberrational—”

Pepper props her hands on her hips and gives him a steely-eyed glare, and Tony’s words trail off. “Tony. Let’s skip the part where you pretend I’m an idiot, shall we?”

Tony closes his mouth.

“Thank you. Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?” she demands.

Tony considers not telling her, just for a moment, but she’s Pepper. Besides, she _did_ just ask him to skip the part where he acts like she’s not disgustingly intelligent in her own right.

“Oh, you know,” Tony says, shrugging elaborately and not meeting her eyes, “just my soul bond finally coming in.”

Pepper pauses, and frowns. “You don’t have a soul bond.”

“Apparently, now I do.”

“But, Tony, that’s—”

He raises his eyebrows, and she stops before actually saying it’s impossible. It’s not _common_ , for a bond to come in after the age of thirty-five, but it does sometimes happen. Tony’s parents are proof of that. It’s just that even in the uncommon cases, the bond almost _always_ comes in on or shortly before the younger person’s eighteenth birthday, and if Tony’s is only coming in _now_ —

It probably means Tony Stark’s soul mate is twenty-five years younger than his is.

“What do you want to do about it?” Pepper asks, after a minute.

“Do? I don’t want to _do_ anything. What’s there to do?”

“You could contact one of the bond matching services,” Pepper says. She doesn’t sound like she’d recommend that; it’s like she feels she _has_ to say it. This, from Pepper, who used a service to find Happy, and is usually a huge advocate of them.

“Yeah, _no_ ,” Tony says immediately.

“Well,” Pepper says, with a little sigh that Tony interprets as relief. “That’s probably for the best. Can you imagine what the media would say about this?”

“The words ‘pervert’ and ‘cradle-robber’ spring to mind.”

Pepper grimaces, which means that’s exactly what she’d been thinking they’d say, too.

Tony averts his eyes entirely. He’s a middle aged man with a teenager for a soul mate—another thing he wishes he didn’t have in common with his dad. “So,” he says, brightly. “Dinner?”

Pepper lets them move on to eating. Tony’s almost stupid enough to think she’s letting it go entirely—of course, she _isn’t_.

“Are you getting anything from it?” she asks, after a while.

 _Despair_.

Fortunately, Tony’s mouth is full, so he has a moment to realize he really doesn’t want to say _that_.

“Uh, anger, I would say, definitely a lot of anger,” he says, instead.

Pepper’s brow creases. “Probably natural for a—” She stops before she says the word _teenager_ , which Tony appreciates. “For someone who’s just had their bond come in. Is there anything _useful_ , Tony?”

“Confusion and frustration,” he offers. “A lot of that as well.”

“That’s not very surprising either,” she says, with a sigh. “ _Or_ helpful. Can you tell where they are?”

Tony looks down at his food. “Not here,” he says. “Just—very not here.”


End file.
